Possibly relevant- during the Konfrontasi between Indonesia and Malaysia, the UK sent RAF units to deter potential Indonesian aggression- including a squadron of English Electric Lightnings.
At this point, the Indonesian Air Force were still flying Mustangs. The RAF took a Spitfire out of storage to let the Lightning pilots practice interception techniques against much slower aircraft.
They liked American cars and trucks. Tanks though? Not so much.
The Soviets massively outproduced the Nazis in tanks, and theirs were good rather than the deathtraps the Americans sent to the Western front (figuring in Ford Pintonomics that they could build four to one which is how many crews died to take out one nazi tank rather than changing the factories). Once the Soviets won the decisive tank battle at Kursk, cutting German access to fuel, the Americans were in a race to save western Europe or else the Soviets were only going to stop when they reached the sea.
Not only agree, but the superiority of the T-34 over the M-4 Sherman was proven in the first year of the Korean War.
North Korean tanks made short work of Shermans and nearly overran the Korean Peninsula. It wasn’t until the US was able to bring in later model/post WWII tanks like the M-26 Pershing and M46 Pattons that they were able to turn the tide
And ever since then US armour has absolutely wiped the floor with Soviet/Russian.
I mean it’s old stuff now but I went to a tank museum in Saumur years ago and being up close and personal with all the competing tanks was incredibly enlightening. You could see how revolutionary the T34 was or how the IS were the only things out there that could take on a Tiger or why Jagdpanzers became so popular, or why the heavy tanks actually didn’t solve all the problems. Oh and just how amazingly quickly the designs evolved in the first 4 or 5 years of the war.
The early Panzers weren’t even better than the French ones they decisively beat, though their comms and tactics were. Panzerchokolade probably helped. The Germans used the captured tanks just as well in blitzkrieg as their own.
Post-Korean war, have there even been any significant or large-scale tank-vs-tank battles? My totally uniformed impression was that that kind of warfare where both sides are using the latest in tank technology has been relatively obsolete for something like 60 years.
Gulf War 1 had a few. Battle of Medina Ridge, and the Battle of 73 Easting, althought the latter had a lot of BFV involvement (not really a tank).
The war for Bangledesh Independence in the late 60’s had significant tank on tank battles.
The October War in 1973 had bitterly contested tank battles in the Golan Heights and Sinai
I stand corrected- it’s only been 30 years since a significant tank-vs-tank battle, not 60. Although I suspect we won’t be seeing many more in the future, what with the advances in precision drone strike technology, etc.
See above. It should be noted that engagements were rarely with the absolute current state of the art Russian tank but I think there is a clear pattern.
You’re absolutely right that it’s a thing of the past though and I believe many US services (e.g. marines) no longer really want tanks.
The Marines are giving up their tanks due to a shifting role toward a more mobile, combined-arms force. They are also a relatively small component so they have difficulty staffing a large variety of job functions (MOS). So it made sense to shift their labor-intense tanks to the Army.
Tanks still have a role. While drone strikes are more common over the past 20 years they are only effective if there is little risk of them being shot down. Also you can operate a platoon of tanks for a day for the cost of one drone strike.
(BTW, I’ll be happy if there was never another tank battle).
Interesting if true, although if it is true I wonder how much longer that will be the case. A platoon of modern tanks is by no means cheap to operate, and it obviously puts a lot more soldiers in harm’s way to drive and maintain tanks near the front lines than it does to pilot a drone remotely from Las Vegas.
Edit to add: as for the “only effective if there’s little risk of getting shot down” part, isn’t that the whole point of drones? That you can put them into situations where there’s risk of getting shot down without losing any pilots? In the most recent battles that involved tanks it seems that air support played a crucial role for victory, so I don’t know if you’d want to operate tanks in any situation where you couldn’t also fly support aircraft, drones or otherwise.
For sure. I always imagine Kursk must have been one of the most hellish places on earth for some time with soft meat humans scuttling around giant metal monsters in clouds of smoke and dust and fumes illuminated by burning and flashing.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
